


now i just sleep beneath your floor (my ghost tries to keep you warm)

by unveils



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Fusion, Canon Temporary Character Death, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, angst?? so much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-05 00:18:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10293149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unveils/pseuds/unveils
Summary: how happy is the blameless vestal’s lot / the world forgetting, by the world forgot / eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! / each prayer accepted, and each wish resigned.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this was anna's idea so it only makes sense that the end result is hers as well. the dynamic between jason & tim comes from a long-time au where they met and fell in love before jason died, tim became robin to fill his place, jason came back as red hood, etc. summary quote is by alexander pope, the title is by radical face, and the concept is from the movie eternal sunshine of a spotless mind.

The first thing Bruce tells him is, “This is the hard part.”

The pill on the tongue. The worn-leather jacket reeking of cigarette smoke folded neatly into a bag as black as the one at the morgue. Jason’s smile in every photograph from the manor like a jack-knife in his mind, cutting into whatever piece of him that it can reach, over and over and over.

“This is the hard part,” Bruce says, and the last thing Tim sees before he closes his eyes is the sympathy on Bruce’s face.

“It’ll be over soon.”

 

 

\--

 

 

He sees the pixie boots enter the frame before Jason’s face, but he can imagine it all the same -- has a hundred photos of that smile, those cheekbones, the freckles and the eyes lined along his closet walls, each spaced at an equal and safe distance. It’s not a shrine, he knows (has told himself, over and over, that you can’t be _obsessed_ with someone who doesn’t know you exist), but part of Tim thinks he knows Jason Todd better than anyone else in the world.

On the roof, he takes a moment to collect himself, to pull the camera from his face, but Jason doesn’t give him the freedom of that -- laughs bright and wild and moves to pull the piece free from Tim’s grasp. He doesn’t seem all that interested in the contents or the reason Tim has it, just bending down to face Tim where he’s still crouched on the rooftop, cowering like a criminal.

“Hey,” Jason says.

Robin says.

And then, “I know you. You’re that kid -- the one that’s always following us around.” Jason’s eyes drop, begin to flick through the settings on the camera, the pictures Tim’s taken of the night.

There’s a moment between them where it’s just the click-click-click of buttons against the noise of Gotham City, but eventually, Jason looks up like he’s caught on to the fact that Tim’s not reacting, just holding himself very still, terror unfurling in the pit of his stomach.

“B doesn’t know.” Jason says, suddenly, casual. “He’d kick your ass if he did, but he doesn’t, so don’t worry.”

And suddenly, Tim remembers this. Feels the way relief washes over him like a wave, deja vu and something new, something desperate like the feeling you get watching a ship slowly sinking. Jason smiles, and Tim remembers that, too, a hundred pinpricks of light burning hot underneath his skin.

This is the first time he fell in love with Jason Todd.

Suddenly, he wants to say something, wants to reach out --

_Jason, I’m sorry._

But that’s not how this works.

This is the hard part, Bruce had said.

Jason hands him back his camera, offers him a slick little salute, playful and kind.

“Just stay safe, alright?”

This is the first time, and Tim thinks, if he could just hold onto it --

When Jason dives off the roof with all the grace of something real, something tangible, something _alive_ \-- Tim aches.

And then, suddenly, he doesn’t.

 

 

\--

 

 

Bruce doesn’t talk about Red Hood.

It’s not the first time he’s been cagey about a criminal, and it’s certainly not the first time Tim’s had to resort to other means of finding out information. It’s Robin’s job to help Batman, even if he doesn’t think he needs it.

But the thing is, there are no files. No data. No nothing.

Criminals don’t leave paper trails, but _people_ have identities.

Nightwing tells him to just leave it, ends the phone call with curt words that don’t normally fit Dick’s demeanor. Oracle won’t even entertain the idea of talking about anything but patrol schedules, Steph’s progress.

Tim’s been around long enough to know when something’s being hidden from him, and it’s just as infuriating as it was when he started this.

It’s a cool autumn night when Tim gets back to his house after patrol. It’s late -- Jack’s asleep somewhere, probably downstairs with a bottle of whiskey between his legs and the television turned on to some program he won’t remember in the morning. Tim does his check ins before disrobing, pulling the latches off his suit and hanging each piece in the back of his closet.

There’s a blank space, there, and for a moment, he pauses.

Just a spray of white paint, empty. Blank.

(People have identities.)

Suddenly, there’s a knife at his throat, and Tim’s rolling on instinct, throwing an elbow and waiting to hear the skid of metal across his floor. The man goes down easy -- too easy, and Tim lets his guard fly up even without the costume.

“Red Hood,” He starts, and that’s Robin’s voice, cool and collected and a little playful. “I was beginning to think you were some junkie’s pipedream.”

Except -- he doesn’t react like a criminal. His shoulders tense with anger, a full range of emotions without a face. There are latches on his helmet that Tim shouldn’t let him reach for, but the guy’s quick, and Tim didn’t have time to prepare.

Suddenly, there’s a face where a hood should be, and Tim feels -- nothing.

White like the back of his closet.

For a moment, Red Hood doesn’t say anything, just stares and stares.

Finally, his voice is ragged and raw and nothing like any other criminal Tim’s ever come into contact with.

“This who you are now, Timmy? Your boyfriend’s leftovers?”

Timmy --

“Didn’t take long for either of you to move on, huh. Figures, I guess.”

Tim stands a little straighter, tries to keep his brows from smoothing together. His staff is a foot away and he could be there in seconds, but there’s something here, and it’s not a threat.

Still, he says, clear as he can. “You need to leave.”

Red Hood looks at him for a minute, stares like he’s working something over in his head. It’s anger, and it’s confusion, and it’s something else. He takes a step forward.

“Tell me he didn’t. Tell me you didn’t -- you didn’t _choose_ to forget what we--”

Tim takes a step back. Picks up his staff, and for a minute, Red Hood looks -- hurt.

“Get out of my house.” There’s a note of panic in his voice, and he hates the way it defines his words.

But he does. Red Hood picks up his helmet, and he leaves, quick as he came.

Tim’s eyes fall back to that closet wall, white, white, white.

 

 

\--

 

 

Jason’s jacket looks nice in Tim’s room, thrown over a chair like it belongs there.

Maybe if a part of Jason could exist here naturally, Tim could, too.

They’re on Tim’s bed and light’s barely filtering in through the blinds, Jason’s arm around Tim’s waist, his breath warm and steady against the side of Tim’s collarbone. _Studying_ , is what they’d called it that afternoon between their two lockers, smiles like a promise they both knew they’d break.

Tim can’t see, can’t feel anything but the weight of Jason’s skin pressed against his side.

In this moment, he remembers feeling happy.

There’s no loneliness, here.

And then, Jason says it, just as Tim thinks it:

“You know,” Soft. “You know, I didn’t think I’d ever meet someone like you.”

In this moment, he remembers feeling happy -- feeling the touch of Jason’s lips to his own, the way he’d rolled over top of Jason’s lap and they’d both laughed until Jack got home, until the sun went down, until Jason’s jacket was left forgotten on the back of Tim’s chair.

There was no loneliness, here.

Tim closes his eyes, and panic blooms like a drop of blood in a spread of water.

_Just let me have this one,_ he thinks.

_Just let me keep this._

Jason’s laughter echoes bright in his ear until it’s Dick’s, until it’s Steph’s, until it’s no one at all’s.

 

 

\--

 

 

“Stitches,” Bruce says, finally. “Are not meant to be picked at.”

Tim takes a knife and carves the words ‘Jason Todd’ into the white of his closet wall.

 

 

\--

 

 

The funeral is dark and regal, a black casket lowered into a black grave in the Wayne family plot. Members of the hero community litter the handful of seats surrounding the bouquets of flowers, but no one speaks. No one says a single damn thing.

Tim doesn’t cry.

Tim dreams.

Tim dreams in angry sprays of red, in ugly blooms of blue, in the aching rust of a crowbar’s silver crashing down, down, down.

The first time Dick calls Tim “Little Wing”, he flinches, stumbles backwards. There’s no room for emotions in the cave, no room for the way his chest feels like a cavern sinking in. Tim doesn’t cry until he makes it to the kitchen, until it pours from him wave after wave. Red. Blue. Silver.

He doesn’t hear Bruce, but eventually, there’s a hand on his shoulder.

When the heaving stops, he hears Bruce say, soft -- “You loved him.”

Tim doesn’t have to say anything.

 

 

\--

 

 

The first thing Bruce tells him is, “This is the hard part.”

“It’ll be over soon.”

 

 

\--

 

 

He meets Jason Todd for the second time on a Tuesday. Jason’s eyes are cold like an animal with a leg in a snare, bleeding out but not blinking for it.

Tim feels blank.

When he steps forward, Jason steps back.

With balled fists, Tim forces himself to look -- to ask. Jason Todd, carved into the white of his wall, carved out of the span of his head. “What were we?”

Jason laughs, then, a cracked thing, bitter all the way down.

“Does it matter?”

Tim steps forward. Jason doesn’t step back.

“There are -- I found your pictures. Your jacket.” Tim swallows. “In a bag Bruce had.” After a moment, he breathes out, fists still balled tight, a way to ground himself to the way he can’t trust his mind. “I think it must have hurt so much I couldn’t handle it.”

It’s a selfish thing to say, a selfish thing to admit, but it’s true, and Jason’s eyes go softer.

“It’s not fair.” Jason snarls it, far too aggressive to be anything but bravado, but pain. Jason bleeds everything in ways that Tim knows he could fall in love with, long before he had Robin, when he was just that desperate, lonely boy. Another selfish thing, but he’s full of those today, and he can’t help but notice the splatter of freckles on Jason’s nose.  “It’s not fair that you get to forget. I existed, Tim. _We_ existed. You erased me, and I--”

Jason looks away.

“I have to live with that.”

Tim feels --

The white wall, angry carvings.

Jason Todd, Jason Todd, Jason Todd.

 

_Stay safe, alright?_

 

“For what it’s worth,” He says, finally. “I wish I hadn’t.”

 

 

 

\--

 

 

“It’ll be over soon.”

 

 

\--

 

 

The last thing Tim loses is the way Jason’s lips curled into a smile underneath his own that first night in July. Mask still on, gloves handled the skin of Tim’s cheeks as gently as possible. Tim’s camera is out of sight, out of mind, and Jason feels --

Too much. Perfect.

Tim thinks he could live in this moment forever.

When Jason pulls back, he laughs, a genuine little thing, before knocking his forehead against Tim’s.

“This is a bad idea, you know.”

Jason’s face is losing details, and Tim’s a backseat passenger watching them go, trying to chart them while he can.

In the moment, Tim just shakes his head, desperate fingers clenching hard on the green of the uniform.

_Don’t,_ Tim thinks.

  
“No,” He says, blissful and unaware. “It’s not.”


End file.
